Christmas Is a Holiday for Friends

December 21, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Christmas, which is celebrated on December 25.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

A Christmas poem about Christmas and friendship:

Christmas is a holiday for friends,
However they may be, or not, related.
Remember that the three wise kings were strangers
In search of one remote, uncanny dream.
So may we all be far more than we seem,
Together bound for dark and haunting changes,
More lovely for the loves we have created
Along the lonely paths from means to ends,
Stumbling towards that star of Bethlehem.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/xmasis.html. For more Christmas poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/xmaschristmaspoems.html .

This week’s theme: Christmas
December 21: Christmas Is a Holiday for Friends

So May This Season of Sweet Celebration

December 20, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Season’s Greetings.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

A Season’s Greetings poem about passing holiday traditions on to the next generation:

So may this season of sweet celebration
Endure for yet another generation,
Alive in food and ritual and song,
Sustained by the desire to pass it on.
Of love and will and long tradition sing,
Needing new knots to extend the string.
Sing the cover songs that touch the heart,
Giving them new salience through your art.
Revel in the riches of the season,
Embracing truths more resonant than reason,
Each a myth of hope revealed anew
That touches something beautiful in you.
If you resolve not to let it die,
Nor be reduced to something one might buy,
Giving it the imprint of your grace,
So will the next brigade this time embrace.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/somayt.html. For more Season’s Greetings poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html.

This week’s theme: Season’s Greetings
December 14: Sing of Love, That Graces Every Season
December 15: Say There’s Neither Santa Claus nor God
December 16: Safe Within the Womb of Expectation
December 17: Share a Bit of Sunshine on Dark Days
December 18: Some Refuse the Pleasures of the Season
December 19: Sing of Love and Happiness and Joy
December 20: So May This Season of Sweet Celebration

Sing of Love and Happiness and Joy

December 19, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Season’s Greetings.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

A Season’s Greetings poem to a couple who is devoted to making the world a better place:

Sing of love and happiness and joy,
Even as the world descends towards sorrow,
A song of hope reborn to spirits buoy,
So sweet it brings new promise to tomorrow.
Open up the windows of your heart,
Nor need you doubt the power of your song.
Sing with all your wisdom and your art,
Gathering strength as others sing along.
Render scenes from your imagination
Embodying the soul of your ideal,
Eroding the redoubt of resignation
That stands between what should be and what's real.
If all your efforts sometimes seem to be
No more than pouring wine into the sea,
Give another metaphor a chance:
Sing, that all the world around might dance.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/sing18.html. For more Season’s Greetings poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html.

This week’s theme: Season’s Greetings
December 14: Sing of Love, That Graces Every Season
December 15: Say There’s Neither Santa Claus nor God
December 16: Safe Within the Womb of Expectation
December 17: Share a Bit of Sunshine on Dark Days
December 18: Some Refuse the Pleasures of the Season
December 19: Sing of Love and Happiness and Joy

Some Refuse the Pleasures of the Season

December 18, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Season’s Greetings.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

A Season’s Greetings poem about enjoying religious holidays even when one is not religious:

Some refuse the pleasures of the season,
Ever the pure acolytes of reason,
Against whatever smacks of superstition,
Severing supply lines to tradition.
One need not be Catholic to be catholic,
Nor be of faith to be towards faith empathic.
Sing, then, with sweet gusto songs that may
Grace the message of a holy day,
Reveling in beauty, though it be
Engaged in service to a mystery,
Enjoying what you never would believe,
Tailoring the torso to the weave.
If one loves the music, one should dance,
Nor need one look the provenance askance,
Granted myths that make the end of year
So lovely one rejoices when they're here.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/somere.html. For more Season’s Greetings poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html.

This week’s theme: Season’s Greetings
December 14: Sing of Love, That Graces Every Season
December 15: Say There’s Neither Santa Claus nor God
December 16: Safe Within the Womb of Expectation
December 17: Share a Bit of Sunshine on Dark Days
December 18: Some Refuse the Pleasures of the Season

Share a Bit of Sunshine on Dark Days

December 17, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Season’s Greetings.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

A Season’s Greetings poem about lighting the cold, dark days with inner delight:

Share a bit of sunshine on dark days,
Enduring with a smile and a song,
As those lit by your laughter sing along,
Singing down the winter's frozen ways.
Open up your heart to holidays,
Nor can a bit of jollity be wrong,
Singing of life's pleasures loud and long,
Giving voice to all that sadness sways.
Remember that the winterscape is stark,
Each naked branch a-shiver in the wind,
Each grassy field knee-deep in drifted snow,
The white world waiting for an early night.
In such times one's windows light the dark,
Not shuttered that the world might see within
Glimpses of warm inner rooms that glow,
Shining with sincere yet willed delight.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/sharea.html. For more Season’s Greetings poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html.

This week’s theme: Season’s Greetings
December 14: Sing of Love, That Graces Every Season
December 15: Say There’s Neither Santa Claus nor God
December 16: Safe Within the Womb of Expectation
December 17: Share a Bit of Sunshine on Dark Days

Safe Within the Womb of Expectation

December 16, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Season’s Greetings.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

A Season’s Greetings poem about the pleasures and the difficulties of returning to one’s childhood home for the holidays:

Safe within the womb of expectation,
Each dancer finds anticipated joy,
A rich routine of choreographed sensation,
Sweet rites no repetition can destroy.
On certain holidays one turns towards home,
Needing to reprise one's childhood part,
Sustain the sense that one is not alone,
Greet again the family at one's heart.
Return, then, to a place you cannot go,
Embracing what you can no longer hold.
Each moment is a print in drifting snow;
The wind obliterates all things but the cold.
Instantly you are a child again,
Not only in your joy but in your pain.
Grace requires all your strength and love,
Serving only those who dancers prove.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/safewi.html. For more Season’s Greetings poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html.

This week’s theme: Season’s Greetings
December 14: Sing of Love, That Graces Every Season
December 15: Say There’s Neither Santa Claus nor God
December 16: Safe Within the Womb of Expectation

Say There's Neither Santa Claus nor God

December 15, 2020

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Season’s Greetings.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

A Season’s Greetings poem to someone who recently joined the Unitarian Universalist church:

Say there's neither Santa Claus nor God;
Eight days of light require eight days of oil;
All humankind is rich, recycled sod;
Souls can't shuffle off this mortal coil.
One longs for a community of spirit
Not based on faith in something mystical,
Sustained by love of life as we must live it,
Gift that is itself a miracle.
Reason seems to one most reasonable,
Even though there's much it can't explain.
Embracing faith seems inconceivable;
The act of prayer seems poignant but inane.
In such a case, one joins a non-church church,
Needing for one's spiritual search
Grace that comes from the pursuit of good
Shared with those who will the world one would.

© by Nicholas Gordon

To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/saythe.html. For more Season’s Greetings poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/seasonsgreetingspoems.html.

This week’s theme: Season’s Greetings
December 14: Sing of Love, That Graces Every Season
December 15: Say There’s Neither Santa Claus nor God